


Shut Up and Listen

by WritingYay



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Rocketman (2019)
Genre: Angst, Boyfriends, Breaking Up & Making Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Insecurity, Lack of Communication, M/M, Misunderstandings, Relationship Advice, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 02:05:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19861735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingYay/pseuds/WritingYay
Summary: Taron can take a lot of shit. Now though, he's had enough.





	Shut Up and Listen

All Taron wanted to do, was get the hell out of Glastonbury.

He’d never seen so much MDMA in his life and he’d only be there two days. Crowds of unfocused pupils enclosed the acres like vultures and from all directions came dodgy tan lines and questionable water bottles that were only ever a third full. Taron throws himself into the long hours he’s there with his friends; very aware that the time would go quicker if he joined in instead of standing morbidly in a field scrolling through Instagram. They fall in love with the girl displaying sign translations for Stormzy’s set, and Taron inhales enough summer air, sticky with heatwave, to force his lungs loosen slightly against the sunset.

But he feels sort-of empty for the entire weekend.

A rather large Richard Madden-shaped hole was gaping in his chest. He hadn’t seen his boyfriend for over four months, and that was a big deal. Most people rolled their eyes when he mentioned this excruciating period of little contact, but they’d gone from seeing each other every fuckin’ day through filming to quick phone calls late at night and mediocre phone sex. All Taron wanted was his boyfriend to be in the same country as him for more than a day. Was that too much to ask?

“Jesus Christ.” A voice shouts in his ear, louder than the thumping bass vibrating under Taron’s skin. “Will you please fucking smile?”

Tom looks well on the way to being paralytic when Taron turns around. Even in a navy bucket hat, shell necklace and pink flip-flops, the man looked exactly the same from their drama school days even though that was well over eleven years ago. A pang of nostalgia pierces Taron’s heart and he can’t help but wince.

“Eh? I’m fine!”

“Tell your face that then, you mardy arse.” Tom snorts, knocking their beer bottles together. “You still haven’t seen him?”

“He’s busy.” Taron finds himself parroting the same excuse he’s always hearing from his boyfriend whenever their catch-ups get foiled by impromptu filming sessions over in LA. “Tight schedule to get that film done.”

Tom regards him for a second, the serious glaze to his eyes belittled by the way he’s slightly swaying on the spot. “Rich is a good man. There’s no way he would fuck you over.”

Taron does a visible double take at that, and Tom shrugs. “Yeah… I know mate.”

“Okay. Just checking. Don’t want you to lose faith, I’m counting on being a guest at the wedding.”

“Fucking bull in a china shop, Tom.” Taron hisses and casts his gaze away to somebody trying to fish their phone out of a bin. “Stop saying morbid shit.”

“M’not the only one thinking it.”

“Oh Jesus Christ, why- I wish you would all stop chatting shit about my relationship when I’m not there-”

“We’re concerned, man.”

“Don’t be.” Taron sighs. Rainbow lights beat down on the simple leather woven band circling his wrist that Richard had bought him for their anniversary. It was battered with lasting wear nowadays, but it remained Taron’s most precious possession.

“But I know you.” His friend says quietly, suddenly completely sombre. All remnants of the last few days drinking warm cider disappear as his younger friend stares at him, unflinching. “I know you’re in y’head over not seeing him.”

That hurts. It hurts, because Tom is bang on. Regardless of all the inward chats Taron had executed to convince himself that Richard was still in love with him, an awful part of him still raged with doubt. He hadn’t kissed his boyfriend in over sixteen weeks. They hadn’t had a conversation that lasted more than half an hour for the entire period that Richard had been filming in America. Brandon was over there, Ellie had been over there, every single person Richard had ever had a thing for was over there-

Taron steels himself with a forced exhale. Jealousy was not a good look on anyone; he had learnt early on that it was a philosophy to live by. 

“He’ll be back soon.” The words fall out of his mouth like tiny sparks that ignite the thick air with scepticism. “We’ll be golden.”

Tom arches his eyebrows but doesn’t disagree. True to their friendship, he just gestures with his beer in a ‘cheers’ motion that gets returned, and smiles. 

-

“But you said last week that you weren’t filming this weekend?” Taron _knows_ that he’s sounding like a petty arsehole but fucking hell, another three weeks had flown past and he was starting to forget what shade of blue Richard’s eyes were. “I told you a’booked a flight and all.”

“I know, an’ am sorry.” Richard replies, sounding faraway and incredibly distracted. “Everything was going to plan but then we had a problem being out on location this week which means it’s all being pushed back.”

The worst bit about dating an in-demand actor for Taron was being one himself. However pissed off he got at Richard and his schedule, he knew how temperamental filming could be and how easily organised dates could go awry. Production managers did their best but sometimes changes happened out of everyone’s control and the crew just had to get the hell on with it. That didn’t mean it doesn’t ache when he can’t see his boyfriend, though.

“You better not get another lead in a blockbuster if this is how busy you’re gonna be.” Taron jokes. He hates the serious undertone to his voice. Richard picks up on it and laughs nervously.

“I’ll make it up to you when I’m home, T.” He purrs. There’s a voice in the background screaming his name and he verbally winces. “I gotta go, baby, I’ll ring you soon, ‘kay?”

“Okay, say hi to-” the blaring flatline of Richard hanging up decapitates Taron’s sentence like he’s nothing. “-for me.”

He takes the phone away from his ear and stares at the _Madden, 03:32_ time stamp with increasing horror. 

Three minutes. Three fucking minutes. That’s all Taron is worth nowadays.

“I know he’s chockablock and they’ve got his balls in a vice grip about getting the shooting done but god in heaven,” Taron fumes to Elton an hour later. “I deserve longer than three minutes.”

“I can’t work out,” Elton returns with a grunt. “Whether you’re insecure about his loyalty or scared that he’s going to ditch you for the glamour of Hollywood?”

All of the breath in Taron’s chest solidifies into ice.

“Fucks sake.” He groans. “Don’t say that.”

Elton sighs with pity dripping through the noise in abstract gold. “Oh, darling. I’m not the best person to ask about this. Poor David hardly ever gets a minute of me to himself when I’m touring- it’s more of a quick call home to speak to him and the boys collectively every day.”

“You’ve managed it though.” Taron points out and Elton snorts.

“That’s because I love him.”

“I love Rich.” Taron demands seriously, his palm splayed out in front of him like he’s trying to convince his older friend. “That’s not up for debate.”

“Love and trust are often used in the same way, but they’re very different.” Elton offers wisely. The man was like a walking advice hotline. “He would trust you if it was the other way around.”

Taron whimpers petulantly. “I know that, but… Ellie is-”

“Nothing compared to you.” His confidant interrupts firmly. “Taron, my sweet boy, Richard thinks the bloody world of you. He’s busy, like you said, not off sticking it to the ex he hasn’t seen for years.”

Taron loves Elton frickin’ John with all his heart. 

“What a beautiful way with words you have.” He says drily, but the appreciation of the advice is glaringly obvious. “You reckon?”

“I know.” Elton tells him confidently, and then yawns. “I must go, darling. The boys kept us up last night wanting to watch _Paw Patrol_ and I’m falling asleep into my camomile tea. Please talk to that boy of yours?”

“Uh huh.”

“You where I am.” Elton says fondly, before the line clicks dead again. 

Taron ponders over what Elton said for the entirety of the following week. He meets up with Jamie for lunch and purposefully doesn’t mention Richard until Jamie asks about his filming. It’s clear that Jamie feels sceptical about Taron’s feelings towards his boyfriend, which is Taron’s fault really. Going from talking about Richard constantly to avoiding mentioning his name was always going to be suspicious but Taron had to think about himself. If he talked about the situation, then he was gonna cry and then Jamie would be ripping Richard a new arsehole within about half an hour.

Chaotic friendships had always been Taron’s forte. The vicious protective nature between every single one of his companions fuelled his support system, and at a time when his boyfriend couldn’t be arsed to see him for a few hours because he wanted to go out with his co-stars, a support network was fucking crucial. 

So when it all goes tits-up a few days later, Taron flees to the one person who has been his side since birth.

“This is a fucking joke.” Taron spits down the phone, and means it. The London townhouse he’d shared with his boyfriend for the majority of their relationship was dark and cold. The windows seemed to shrink with every thump of Taron’s racing heart.

“How many times do you want me to apologise?” Richard sounds so out of breath and Taron’s mind is screaming with anxiety daydreams of why that could be.

“Our _anniversary_.”

“It’s out of my control.” Richard cries back. “I’d be there if I could, you know I would.”

Out of the blue, Taron feels absolutely exhausted. All of the fighting, and the worrying, and the snide remarks, the sad looks from friends, was starting to make it hard. Loving Richard Madden, the global superstar, was never meant to difficult. They were Vanity Fair’s power couple of the decade, they were shitty proof that love can work in the film industry, they were people to look up to. But it wasn’t _Taron and Richard_ anymore. It was just Taron, and then Richard- in a different country surrounded by temptations with his phone permanently switched off. 

Taron clenches his teeth together painfully. “I hate this so much. I s-should understand the chaos but all I can think right now is that I’m not worth my boyfriend prioritising our anniversary over a shit film he’s only doing as a favour for a random Glasgow director leftover from five years ago.”

Richard goes silent and then: “I’m trying-”

“No you’re not. That’s why I’m fucking fuming; you don’t give enough of a shit to try and see me.”

“That’s not fair. Are ya’ only kicking off because you’re not here?”

“It’s not-” Taron trails off and swallows, feeling incredibly sick. “I don’t wanna… I don’t want-”

“You don’t want what?” Richard interrupts with incandescent desperation. “Taron, mate, you gotta talk to me.”

Taron squeezes his eyes shut against the palm he’s crunching into his browbones. He hasn’t had an episode like this in years. He can still see the disapproving frown of the GP during an appointment his Mum had dragged him to when he was a teenager; the grimace had screamed unimpressed distain over a lanky boy wasting time by pretending to hyperventilate. 

“I don’t want this.”

The words tumble out in plumes of smoke. They taste like bitter air, polluted from London’s clogged lungs.

“Huh?” Richard sounds utterly wrecked, and Taron should be feeling awful for making him worry but he _can’t breathe_.

“I wanna go home.” Taron spits out through a guttural sob that makes the glass in his window panes shake. The truth is pathetic but painfully real. London wasn’t home. London was constant work and drowning in alcohol. It was hugging random celebrities he didn’t know the names of but felt he should because they had bodyguards. It was boomerangs of eggs benedict at quirky spots dappled by blossom trees even though in reality the coffee tasted like piss and there was a screaming toddler a couple of tables away. London was fake. Taron wanted real.

“Home? What the- where the fuck are you?”

Taron groans in frustration and yearns to drop kick his phone over the sodding city. “I mean _home_. I mean Aberystwyth.” 

Richard growls. “I don’t know what you expect me to say when I don’t know what ya’ fucking goin’ on’bout?!” His accent thickens with every passing second through the confused irritation. 

Taron sighs and closes his eyes to seethe in the pulsating beat behind his eyelids. “I should give you my leather wristband back.”

Silence bleeds through the speaker and Richard chokes quietly. “What did you say?”

“My band.” Taron’s fingers immediately start stroking the leather braiding to calm his jackhammering heart. “I don’t feel like I should have it anymore.”

“Fuck.” Richard gasps and immediately his tone drops from annoyed to devastated. “Don’t say that. Please.”

Light streams through the windows in a perfect spill. The house seems to completely juxtapose the tidal wave of shuddering isolation diluting Taron’s blood. He hates the fuckin’ place even more. “Don’t feel like your boyfriend, Richard.”

He _never_ uses Richard’s full name. He’s Rich in public situations, and he’s Madden when it’s just them. Intimate, like Taron is never ‘baby’ when their private sphere is commandeered by others.

Richard makes a shaky, sort of gasping noise, and Taron’s heard enough. He hangs up and catapults his phone across the room where it collides with the wall sickeningly and falls to the carpet. It just lies there with spiderweb cracking across the screen and Richard’s contact trying to ring back frantically.

“I need to get out of this fucking place.” He whispers to himself. The air pinches against his skin and he can’t get out of the door fast enough.

Taron parks his car outside his Mum’s house and immediately leans forwards to rest his forehead on the cool steering wheel. Outside was beautifully loud, but it was loud with birds chirping and a gentle breeze and soft laughter. He didn’t feel the shake of HGVs when he closed his eyes. He felt utterly stable, like someone had yanked the carpet from under his feet but then replaced it with foam.

When he builds the courage to remove his head from the dashboard to peer lazily into the sun, he spots Tina standing in the porch. She’s got a small apron tied around her waist like that mad one from _Gavin and Stacey_ (such a Welsh stereotype, hey) and a knowing but sad smile adorning her features. Taron lets himself fall into her arms and bury his face against her cotton t-shirt, breathing in her Chanel and feeling safer than he’s truthfully felt in years.

“Ah, my baby boy.” Tina mutters against his hair. “What am I going to do with you?”

Taron shrugs and she chuckles. After a good few minutes of standing there and gently swaying, she leads him through the door and into the farmhouse style kitchen. Nobody has ever been comforted by a fuck-off huge Aga swallowing space by the corner, so Taron is a soft sod. He couldn’t give less of a shit; the house is pleasantly warm and familiar and safe. LA hadn’t torched this corner of the world in flames, and reminders of his boyfriend weren’t hanging from the bannister or strewn across the counter. It was fresh. It was home.

“What do you want in your sandwich?” His Mum pipes up from behind him and he jumps.

“Uh, I’m not really hungry-”

“I’m giving you a choice of what you have, but the part where you actually have to eat is non-negotiable.” She replies determinedly. Taron smiles to himself and settles on ham and cheese. They eat in content silence before washing up side by side just like when Taron was little. Tina even starts to hum under her breath along to the radio, and the feeling of pure nostalgia yanks Taron into peaceful nothing. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tina finally asks much later when they’re cuddled up on the sofa half-watching an American chat show. 

“There isn’t much to talk about.” Taron whispers against the sofa cushions as his Mum continues her ministrations of rubbing circles into his left shoulder. “I felt like I was losing him, he didn’t try hard enough to come back for our anniversary and I slammed my phone against the wall. Done and dusted.”

Tina shakes her head to herself and sighs loudly. “Except, you’re hurting, and that’s not okay in my book.”

A scratch builds behind Taron’s eyelids. “It’s a shit situation.” He nods, voice muffled. “I don’t feel like I have a boyfriend anymore.”

“Unless you told him where to go, there’s still something to fight for.” Tina says. “I’ve never seen you love somebody as fiercely as you love Richard, sweetheart.”

Taron mewls against the fabric and shivers under the cooling night air. “I wish it never got to this point.”

“Hindsight’s a bitch.” His Mum retorts, pulling him closer to her chest. 

“What should I do?”

“If you want it work, then you will sort it out. Personally, I feel like you’ve done your bit. You told him exactly what you thought about not seeing him for months and now the ball is in his court. He can have a dignified conversation with you or he can fuck off into the LA sunset. Whatever the outcome, you’ll be stronger for it as a person.” She states. The words drip with honesty and it’s something Taron is so thankful for. As a parent, she always told him straight. When he was in the wrong, she’d damn well let him know but she would fight to the last day to support him simultaneously. He’d thought that Richard could be like that too, but that mirage had been slowly shattered by the jackhammer that was fate for weeks.

He sleeps restlessly. Every time he closes his eyes, Richard is sat behind his eyelids either tonguing a blonde or profusely apologising. Tina was right: he had two options. Taron _prayed_ the right one would be made.

The following morning, he stands in the shower with two hands braced on the tiles as the water slams down onto his back and causes plumes of red to splay across his skin. It hurts a bit but it helps to ground him in the present. Tina actually walks into him when he exits the bathroom with dripping hair and an oversized hoodie drowning his small frame. She kisses him on the cheek and tells him there’s something in the kitchen that she hopes will make him feel better. Taron narrows his eyes in confusion, but regardless he roughly towel dries his hair and slips his phone off charge before galloping down the stairs singing _Tiny Dancer_ under his breath.

He nearly shits himself when he collides with the bottom step to find Richard fuckin’ Madden sitting at his kitchen table like he belongs there.

“What the-”

“Hi.” Richard croaks, and _fuck_ he looked haggard. He’s wearing his glasses, and that was a sure sign that he had it bad. Taron _loved_ his boyfriend in his Hugo Boss eyewear because it made him look stupidly soft yet mysterious and suave. In return, Richard thought they made him look much older than his thirties and that was pure bullshit. Black smudges circle his eyes and a sickly grey hung on to his pallor like chalk: clear signs that he hadn’t slept. He was hunched over in his chair to make himself incredibly small, and his arms were crossed in military defence mode. Guarded, hurt, confused.

“Hey.” Taron whispers back, now understanding why his Mum had been acting weird. “What are you doing here?”

“Ya’ scared the fuckin’ life out of me with that phone call.” Richard says. His lower lip stays firmly drawn, taut with facial tension like he’s attempting not to cry. “An’ I knew I had to apologise to you in person, as it should always be.”

Neither of them move for a heartbeat until Taron looks down, sighs, and shuffles across the tiled floor to drop into the chair adjacent to the older man. Richard’s hair falls down in messy curls around his forehead from an entire night threading his hands through it with panic. 

“I shouldn’t have said some of those things.”

Richard’s eyes widen. “Are ya’ kidding me?” His fingers twist together in knots. “Thank god you did, you sounded like you were having a breakdown.”

“I didn’t expect you to fly back from LA.” Taron points out. 

Richard grits his teeth and tries not to roll his eyes. “Christ, Taron, you’re making me out like some sort of monster here.”

Taron blinks, wounded. “Not a monster.” He replies, careful to keep his tone even. “Blind, though.”

“If that’s a quip about the glasses-”

“Richard.” The harsh snap to his voice scalds the older man like hot water. He jumps in his seat like a convulsion and stares at Taron’s seething tone with wide, knowing eyes. “Will you please just shut the fuck up for a minute?”

Nothing more is said for a heartbeat as the air thickens with smoking tension. Taron forces himself to exhale shakily and ball his fists up. He reminds himself that he has every right to be angry, and upset, but shouting at his estranged other half is not going to resolve matters.

“Why are you here?” Taron repeats, much quieter this time. Richard narrows his eyebrows and pulls his sleeves further over his pulse points anxiously.

“I said, I-”

“No.” Taron stops him with an outstretched hand. “I mean, why are you _here_? You could’ve waited until you got home to London in your next break to talk to me. I need to know why you decided to come straight to my Mum’s house in Wales when you haven’t stepped foot in the country for weeks.”

Richard blinks in quick succession before dragging his gaze up to meet Taron’s. He looks so exhausted and lost, and Taron’s heart pangs a bit at the visible ache.

“I’ve behaved horribly.” He says after a while. The words sound raw and heartbreakingly honest; full of regret and disbelief at how things became so tangled. Richard clears his throat and starts tapping at the floor with his toes. “An’ I didn’t want to get dumped over the phone.”

Something actually shatters in Taron when he does a double-take. “Excuse me?”

“If you’re gonna break up with me,” Richard reiterates with glassy eyes that look dangerously close to overflowing. “I thought I’d give you the respect to be present when you do it.”

Taron just sits there with a slack jaw, stunned. His eyes stray from Richard’s shiny eyes to the way his nails are digging crescent moons into the fragile skin on his palms and he blanches. Fuck.

“Let me make one thing very clear right now.” He demands with all the authority of a field-mouse. Richard, who would listen to a puppy in his vulnerable state right now if it told him to sit, cowers in on himself again but nods sharply. “You’ve been a crap boyfriend recently and you should’ve got your shit together a long time ago, but I was not planning to break up with you.”

Even though he’s hated Richard at a few points over the last season, the certainty to his words is true. He doesn’t want to lose his boyfriend; he just wants things to change. Taron tells him as much as watches as Richard swallows slowly and sniffs.

“It’s just… your wristband, I thought- that sounded like the end.” 

Taron shakes his head minutely and wrings his fingers together. “I meant it when I said that I don’t feel like your boyfriend anymore. I don’t want to _stop_ being in a relationship with you, I just don’t want it to be like _this_.”

“This?”

“Having a relationship with your answering machine and only seeing digital versions of you over Snapchat isn’t healthy,” Taron shrugs. “An’ it isn’t what I signed up for.”

“But-” the Scotsman stops and takes a deep breath. “You know what filming is like, you know how manic it can be?”

Taron smiles sadly. “I know that if it was me in LA and you waiting here like a lemon, I’d make damn sure to see you whenever the hell I could and I’d make time to have conversations that lasted longer than ten minutes.”

Suddenly, Richard’s eyes develop an alarming sheen. He drops his head down to lace his fingers behind his neck and exhale sharply onto his thighs. “I’ve fucked this up so badly.” He says mournfully.

Taron doesn’t argue. Instead, he shuffles in his chair and steels himself to ask the question he’s been dreading.

“Do you want to make this work?”

There’s a cracking noise as Richard arches his neck to stare at Taron dead in the eyes. “Are you fuckin’ kidding? O’course I do, T, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

A small smile envelops Taron’s lips before he schools himself into severity. “I’m just checking.”

Richard scoffs and runs a hand through his unruly hair. “You’re my world, Taron. My fucking world. I’ve been a knobhead, I know, but you have to know that I’d do _anything_ to continue calling you m’boyfriend.”

“You missed our anniversary.”

“I know.” Richard’s voice cracks. “I regret that so much. You were right, I should’ve made more an effort to tell them to shove their schedule up their arse t’come and see you.”

Taron sighs. “Look, maybe I was overreacting over this but-”

“No.” Richard says firmly and Taron’s eyes widen in surprise. “I rang Elton for advice after you hung up on me and he helped me to see it from your perspective. He gave me some… well, let’s call it some home truths about how I’d acted and I got on a flight a few hours later.”

“What did you say to your director?” Taron asks warily.

“That my relationship was on the rocks and that my boyfriend is more important to me than anything else.” He answers quietly. There’s a deep crevice between his eyes that makes him look even more tired. “Fuck knows what will happen. Honestly, I don’t give much of a shit. The panic of maybe losing you gave me a kick up the arse to realise that I’d been a tit and neglected you.” He then rests his arm on the table with his palm upturned and his fingers slightly curled. “No more, T, I promise.”

Taron watches the outstretched arm carefully. He then reaches forwards to cover Richard’s palm with his own and entwine their fingers. The warm weight of his boyfriend, the one who is actually sat next to him for the first time in many long months, fills his heart with confetti. 

“An’ here I was worrying you were going to bump into one of your exes and toss me aside.” Taron reveals in one sweeping breath, hoping that Richard will not hear it. He does, but luckily he grins.

“I saw Ellie out in West Hollywood, she’s engaged.” 

“Should we send something?” Taron jokes. Richard laughs and squeezes their hands together. It’s only now that Taron can tell his boyfriend is shaking. He rises from his chair with their hands still clasped together and takes liberty in dropping into Richard’s lap to curl up under his chin. Richard relaxes his hand with a thankful gasp and immediately envelops the shorter man, with one arm circling his waist and the other stretching across Taron’s back to cradle the base of his skull. He presses his nose into Taron’s hair and starts rocking him gently.

“I’m so fucking sorry I made you feel like shit.” 

“I know.” Taron breathes into his chest, swiping his thumb backwards and forwards over his boyfriend’s hipbone. 

“You’re it for me.”

Taron grins to himself and feels his eyelashes flutter against his fragile skin. “I love you.”

The sentiment is returned, real and raw. They ponder how near they were to throwing each other away, and the moment curled around the missing part of their hearts seems even sweeter.

“Oh thank god for that.” Tina pipes up from the doorway. “I thought I was going to come down to a trashed kitchen.”

Richard snorts and rests his cheek on Taron’s crown. “It did cross my mind to be honest.”

“Shut up you, you’re still on thin ice.” Taron teases with a swat on Richard’s abdomen. The older man laughs and winks at Tina.

“Yes my lord.”

It is only then that Taron realises that his pulse was beating in perfect synchronisation with Richard’s. Their hearts had aligned again to thump away in one flawless sequence of belonging. 

There’s a whisper from over his head. “Stop thinkin’ so loud.” 

Taron obeys. He switches off his brain and basks in the golden silence, encased in the man he was lucky enough to call his.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again x


End file.
